After the Disaster: Re-creating Community and Well-Being at Buffa ...

The Week After

Relief and cleanup efforts hit full stride during the next week. The Army Corps of Engineers cleared one lane of Route 16 all the way up the valley to Lorado. The corps also started clearing lots for thirteen temporary trailer camps along Buffalo Creek and the Guyandotte River. Officials from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) established an office in Man and arranged to bring in nearly 700 mobile homes for about 2,500 of Buffalo Creek’s 4,950 residents at the time of the flood. Hundreds of the other survivors had already relocated outside of Buffalo Creek to live with relatives and friends, temporarily or permanently. By midweek, many of Buffalo Creek’s school-aged children were attending classes again, either at their original schools or at schools outside of Buffalo Creek. Most of the mines along Buffalo Creek operated three shifts, just as they did before the flood, even though the rail lines had not been rebuilt. Most miners returned to work if they had not been injured in the flood, or if they had recovered sufficiently from their injuries.

To an outsider who read newspaper accounts of Buffalo Creek just five days after the flood, it might seem that Buffalo Creek was on its way to recovery. It might seem that the flood’s damages were more or less obvious and that they were being responded to in a timely manner. Despite extensive damages to miners’ houses and other buildings, more than 4,500 of Buffalo Creek’s 4,950 people had not been killed or severely injured. More than 1,000 of them were still residing in their homes. Plenty of resources were pouring into the area. County, state, and federal political leaders and agencies were actively involved in the relief efforts. Relief supplies and work crews were packed into the town of Man, trying their best to contribute to the relief efforts up and down Buffalo Creek Valley. It might seem as though the flood certainly had been dramatic and destructive, but that it was like many other “natural” disasters—cyclones, tornadoes, and earthquakes that hit communities across the United States from time to time.